Kelly pointed me to these awesome wedding dresses made from pineapple cloth, and my interest was piqued!
It turns out that pineapple fabric, or Piña cloth, is a traditional fiber from the Phillipines dating back from the 1800’s! So here’s the skinny on Piña.
Roisin Fagan lives in London and her partner Arounna Khounnoraj is from Toronto. The pair met when they were neighbors at a craft show in Toronto almost three years ago, and they hit it off immediately. After running into each other at several other Toronto shows over the years, where folks kept asking them if they sold their fabrics, they decided to do just that and to do it together!
We talked last year about the pros and cons of bamboo. Like hemp, growing bamboo is easier on the environment than conventional fibers such as cotton. Bamboo is technically a weed, which means it grows fast and requires no pesticides and very little water.
One downside to bamboo comes during the production process. Since the plant itself isn’t fibrous, it’s mashed down into sort of a chemical slurry and then pressed into fabric. The process is similar to making rayon. It’s toxic for workers, and it strips the bamboo of its beneficial antimicrobial properties.
There’s also the trouble that comes with anything that gets popular. Despite its speedy growth, there is still a threat of overharvesting bamboo. According to the U.N., around 600 varieties of bamboo are extinct or threatened.
Wait…that doesn’t sound fab at all! Well, Greenyarn, a new Boston-based company, has a new approach to producing bamboo fabric that’s worth a look!
Designing a yurt entails color decisions. Of course material swatches are always best, but playing with an interactive tool is a great start.
The Colorado Yurt Company has the greatest exterior color tool available. You can play with the roof and valance choices in addition to the bottom band.
From the creator of the BOBO wrapping scarf comes the new book The Wrapping Scarf Revolution (Leisure Arts #4833)
If you have ever checked out BOBO wraps but were too intimidated to buy one because of the complex wrapping then this book is for you- filled with step by step detailed instructions to help you wrap these beautiful scarves.
It’s a brilliant marketing idea.
Although I have long been stalking Spoonflower (a fabric-on-demand printing service), checking out their Fabric of the Week, even subscribing to their promotional emails, I have never bought their services.
I have ideas, of course–fabric printed with the comic strip that my husband and I write, fabric printed with the rainbow patchwork pattern that I painstakingly piece together from a number of fabrics to make my crayon rolls, fabric printed with my pattern design for my dinosaur stuffies, etc. But these ideas have, so far, all remained in my head.
Until today, at least. Today I’m making at two of my design dreams reality. For free.
To celebrate the release of her book Sewing Green, Betz white designed a special Sewing Green print on organic cotton just for Spoonflower. Not only are they running a deal on the fabric itself, they’re holding a contest where you can win your choice of book from STC Craft, the company that publishes Sewing Green. Here are the deets!
Fairfield, the makes of Poly-fil have gone green adding a whole new line of eco-friendly products to help green your fiber arts and crafts.
You can now quilt green, stuffyour little critters in an eco-friendly way and have bamboo pillows.
Nature-Fil batting, fiberfill and pillow forms now come in bamboo options and natural fiberfill is made out of both bamboo and PLA corn materials.
A clothesline in a shady spot can air dry your laundry without the expense of energy resources, keep your clothes in better condition without subjecting them to the wear and tear of a clothes dryer cycle, and return them to you smelling fresh and sweet without the chemicals contained in a dryer sheet.
A clothesline in a sunny spot can do all that and bleach out soil and stains, to boot, again without the worry of harsh chemicals.
This factor, combined with a very gentle handwashing and some pre-treatments, can restore even very stained and very valuable vintage fabrics. It can also get your kids’ grape juice stains out of your beloved childhood Snoopy sheet set. Here’s how:
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